The Treaty of Versailles

2 Pages 447 Words

When World War I ended on November 11, 1918, peace talks went on for
months due to the Allied leaders wanting to punish the enemy and
“dividing the spoils of war.”
A formal agreement to end the war was made and called the Treaty of
Versailles. The issue that took the most time were the territorial
issues because the empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman, and
Germany had collapsed. These fallen empires had to be divided up and
America’s President Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau of France,
Vittorio Orlando of Italy, and David Lloyd George of Great Britain, were
the main deciders of this deal.
During 1918, Russia was knocked out of the war due to military
defeats and the Bolshevik Revolution. Even though Russia had not been
part of the Central Powers, Germany seized much of western Russia.
After many months of arguing, the four men had made western Russia into
the nations of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland.
The Treaty of Versailles was either a treaty of peace or a
vengeance for the Germans. In April of 1919, Germany was previously
captured and made to wait in a small house that was surrounded with
barbed wire.
The Allied, who captured Germany, wanted to make a peace treaty to
end the fighting. The Germans agreed, but they wanted a treaty that was
based on the Fourteen Points but obviously they were not going to get it
because of the way they were treated; the barbed wire was unnecessary
and “should have tipped them off to what lay ahead.”
When the treaty was first introduced to the Germans, they declined
to sign it. It forced the Germans to accept full responsibility for the
war and strip themselves of its colonies, coal fields, and the provinces
of Alsace and Lorraine. It also made them pay outrageous reparations to
the Allies. Nevertheless, on June 28, 1919, the Germans reluctantly
signed the treaty because the Allies refused to change one word. Out of
the $33 billio...